Pronunciation of 'France'
"Americans are the most uneducated Germanic peoples. The British are indeed stupid as well but still have class over their dumber cousins."
Here we go again. The anti Germanic latin idiots are back. But I will give you one thing. The British and Americans did do one dumb thing and that was liberate France from the germans. Talk about ungrateful.
>>Here we go again. The anti Germanic latin idiots are back. But I will give you one thing. The British and Americans did do one dumb thing and that was liberate France from the germans. Talk about ungrateful. <<
You didn't liberate us! We liberate ourselves! Thats why we have a arch and you British don't.
>>You didn't liberate us! We liberate ourselves! Thats why we have a arch and you British don't.<<
The arch of triumph such idiots - only use for the French: Welcome the invaders and the allies.
If you think that the British and the Americans are "dumb and stupid" then why even bother to speak our Language? Stupid we may be but we're clever with it. Calling the Americans "uneducated" just goes to show how lacking in real time education you are.......America has some of the most illustrious centres of learning in the world. Here's some education for your Anglo/Americanphobic missing brain cells: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, UCLA........just for starters.
Talking of arches........in London......what's the name of that edifice at the top right hand corner of Hyde Park then? Why don't you take your soap box to the nearby Speakers' Corner there and spout out exactly what's on your mind......you will be at perfect liberty to verbalise vociferously to your heart's content exactly whatever poison comes into your mind......a true democracy allows you that privilege without fear or favour from anyone....well, discounting retaliatory comments from whatever audience which bothers to stop by and listen to you.
It's true that Americans pronounce France (and "chance" and "lance") with a flat a. But since the 1960s or 70s, a peculiar pronunciation shift has taken place among Americans, especially those under age 50 or so, in regards to previously little-used words that are deemed to be foreign and have an a in them.
A good example is pasta, which Americans these days pronounce "pahsta." It's the same with the car Mazda. They call it a "Mahzda," just as Nissan sounds something like "knee-sahn." I've even heard young Americans refer to one of their states as Nevahda, which I've noticed annoys Nevadans, who use the established flat-a pronunciation.
Canadians (I'm one) prefer the flat-a sound for all those words, just as Americans still employ it with non-foreign-sounding words, such as "past" or "fan."
In keeping with the "pahsta" trend, Americans increasingly say Me-lahn for Milan, Ee-rahk for Iraq, Ee-rahn for Iran, and Pah-kistahn for Pakistan. One might argue that they're merely trying to emulate the pronunciations of the cultures that created those words, but I think it's more of an automatic response, as if something in their brain says "foreign-language time" and out pops the invariable "ah" sound. I find it hard to believe that the letter a is pronounced in an identical way by speakers of Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and so on.
I'm a strong believer in adapting words of foreign origin (which pretty much sums up the whole English language, doesn't it?) to our pronunciation rules without bending over backwards trying to copy the original pronunciation. Otherwise, we might as well go all the way and say Milano instead of Milan -- or, for that matter, Deutschland instead of Germany.
<<A good example is pasta, which Americans these days pronounce "pahsta." >>
Uh, it's not a new trend, Bob; I've NEVER heard an American say "pasta" with a short A -- it's been "pahsta" all of my 33 years, and is pronounced that way even by the elderly. In fact, it was news to me that other people pronounced it with a flat A until I heard an Englishmen do so.
<<One might argue that they're merely trying to emulate the pronunciations of the cultures that created those words, but I think it's more of an automatic response, as if something in their brain says "foreign-language time" and out pops the invariable "ah" sound.>>
No, it's really because we're "trying to emulate the pronunciations of the cultures that created these words". Why is that so hard to believe?
>I'm a strong believer in adapting words of foreign origin (which pretty much sums up the whole English language, doesn't it?) to our pronunciation rules without bending over backwards trying to copy the original pronunciation.
I agree that we shouldn't have to bend over backwards to do that. Unless a different pronunciation (or word) is already well-established, though, I try to use a fairly close Engish equivalent of the foreign sound. As Uriel says, 'pahstah' isn't an innovation in the United States. It's just the approximate English equivalent of the Italian, and it has been used here for a long time.
When in doubt about the pronunciation of a foreign word, I use the English equivalents of the Spanish vowels. They usually match up better than other English sounds. It's not often, for instance, that a written 'a' in a foreign word is pronounced like the English 'a' in 'slate'.
Speaking of bending over backwards, I don't understand why so many English speakers are switching from 'Koran' to 'Qur'an'. I don't doubt that the apostrophe has some significance when pronouncing the Arabic, but we're not pronouncing Arabic. We're pronouncing English. It seems bizarre in that position in an English word. The two languages don't even use the same alphabet, so why all this attention to reflecting the original Arabic?
Google results:
"Qur'an" 2,160,000
Koran 4,520,000
So far 'Koran' is still more common, but I get the impression that the use of 'Qur'an' is growing fast, and that this spelling will soon replace the traditional one (and students of English spelling will have another unusual spelling to learn). I notice that Wikipedia, for instance, is using 'Qur'an'. When a spelling concerns anything at all sensitive politically, English speakers tend to think, "Ah, a new spelling. We English speakers must have been wrong about the old one. I'd better switch."
Yet we write the German city 'München' as 'Munich', and the Spaniards write 'London' as 'Londres'. Languages routinely adapt foreign words. Adapting a foreign word isn't a sign of disrespect. In fact, it's primarily the more important words that get adapted the most.
"You didn't liberate us! We liberate ourselves! Thats why we have a arch and you British don't. "
Yeah, the French liberate yourselves. That's why half of you were so cowardly that you collaborated with the Germans, and had to have the Americans and British invading France to drive the Nazis out.
We've got Trafalgar Square with a statue of Nelson in it - he's the guy who defeated French DICTATOR Napoleon.
And what countries have the most universities in the world's top 500? America and Britain.
>> And what countries have the most universities in the world's top 500? America and Britain. <<
The top 500 universities by what standard? And if you're referring to the list which I think you are, the order it gives for the top British universities is rather different from, say, the Times University Guide. And even though Britain may well come second in that list for the most universities in the top 500, the vast majority of them are still American.
***And even though Britain may well come second in that list for the most universities in the top 500, the vast majority of them are still American***
That's hardly surprising seeing that the USA is very much larger in size than tiny wee Britain, even with the British upgrading to university status of so many technical colleges, colleges of education and many other places of higher education.
Is there any nationality on the planet you do like? Apart from English. Directed towards Adam.